We often forget the reasons behind us wanting to become sober or clean when the sudden urge or opportunity presents itself to drink or use again.
We forget to think about our current achievements, our families, friends, jobs, education, incarceration, our physical and mental health and so on for the short time that we use or drink and then end up dealing with the shame, guilt or embarrassment that we experience afterwards, all for the short term pleasure, we end up dealing with longer term pain.
Below you will find a couple of techniques that you can use when cravings, urges or temptations present themselves to you. You can also find more tips, tricks and techniques in our other articles on our blog here.
Try Some Positive Self Talk
Next time the urge, craving, temptation or opportunity presents itself, try to remind yourself of this:
“For the few minutes of fun and pleasure, I’m risking my life and prior hard work to get to where I am. I deserve better and I won’t give in to temporary temptations.”
WE KNOW YOU CAN DO IT, BE STRONG, TAKE BACK CONTROL & BE PROUD KNOWING YOU ARE ENOUGH WITHOUT NEEDING TO DEPEND ON A CHEMICAL ESCAPE FOR PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL RELIEF!…
Positive self talk is a really powerful tool to add to your toolkit. You can learn more about positive self talk and affirmations in our previous article, discussing this very topic here.
Remind Yourself What You’re Grateful For?
In the spur of the moment, we don’t think about all of the good things we have worked hard to achieve in our lives whilst we are blinded by the overwhelming temptation to use or drink.
However, having a gratitude list that you can add to daily or create a new one when these overwhelming feelings, urges, cravings and temptations are all you can think of. You can learn more about gratitude lists in a previous article, discussing that topic, with ideas, tips, tricks and techniques to get the most from creating and using gratitude lists here.
Try Urge Surfing
Urge surfing is a technique which allows you to find your way through intense cravings, urges and temptations without resulting to using or drinking. We’ve discussed this in a previous article with all the information, videos, tips and techniques, plus much more here.
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